Chapter 49 Victory

Words : 1311 Updated : Sep 10th, 2025

Malik dragged a hand down his face as his patience wore thinner than thread. This had to be the thousandth try. Or at least close enough. "What a fucking joke." Time had lost all meaning. Days, weeks, months, years. The cave became his prison, the Aether Core his merciless tormentor. He tried everything: slowing his breathing, focusing his thoughts, whispering desperate prayers, cursing the True Sultan, and even some other gods he made up on the spot. Nothing... Just nothing worked. Every time, the sequence was practically the same. The whining hum. The burning heat. The implosion. Another Blink. Another reset. Back to nothing. Back to square one. And yet, it wasn't all bad amidst the endless loop. It was 'practically' the same. Practically. Because in truth, with every death, he learned a little more, gained another sliver of understanding. The parameters, the point of no return, the ways to keep his damn core stable—Malik had pieced it all together like a crappy white-colored puzzle with missing edges. At times, it held out a fraction longer. Barely noticeable at first, but undeniable as the loops stacked. The core's pulsing had a rhythm, a pattern, tiny signals just before things went south. When it was on the verge of rejection. Usually, by the time he noticed, it was already game over. But every now and then, if he reacted just right—focused his Aether at the tips of his fingers—he could delay the inevitable. Delay. Not stop. It wasn't winning, not by a long shot. But it was progress. Agonizingly slow, tear-your-hair-out kind of progress. Eventually, the silence of the cave drove him nuts, so he started keeping track. Not of the days—he'd lost sense of that ages ago. He counted attempts. By the time he hit four digits, he'd memorized every detail of the process: the hum of the core, the way the Aether flowed, the exact millisecond his Essence would rebel. He adapted. Adjusted. Tweaked. Refined. "Total attempt: three thousand, six hundred seventy-two." Malik sounded bored out of his mind, his golden eyes dull, lifeless. "Increment increase: zero point zero zero six seconds. Local fail: one-oh-two." He sat cross-legged with the core balanced in his palms, throwing it from one to the other. It was still as bright as ever, but its color had faded in his eyes—just like everything else around him. The world felt drained like someone had cranked the saturation slider way down. Though somehow, that wasn't something that he noticed. *** {Outside The Projection} But that didn't mean those watching the projection didn't. It was pretty hard to miss, and they weren't about to stay quiet about it. "Am I going blind, or does the world inside look... different now?" "It's not just you. The color's fading." "Not just the color. It's everything. The shadows, the textures, even the way the light moves." "It's all... duller." A weird hush fell over the room as everyone considered the implications. "The saturation's tied to him..." Someone finally said. "To his soul. His... his will to live—" "He's still alive." Safira flinched, not realizing she was defending Malik until she heard her own words. They were more for herself than anyone else. It was what she most hoped to be true. But Layla rejected her hope: "No. He's not. Not really." All eyes turned to her. "Look at him." Her tone was way colder than before, knowing that what she was about to say was going to sting—twice as much for herself. "His body moves, his heart beats, but everything else? It's gone. He's..." She hesitated, struggling to find the right way to say it. "...He's a ghost. Alive in the most technical sense, but dead in every way that matters." "..." "..." "...Heh... ha hahaha!" A nervous laugh broke the tension, surprisingly coming from Azeem. "That's a bit too dramatic, don't you think? He's still fighting, pushing. That's not what a dead man does." "No." Layla's sharp eyes never left the projection. "That's exactly what a dead man does. He fights because he has nothing left. No fear of loss, no sense of self-preservation—just... stubbornness. It's all he has now." The projection flickered, showing Malik's death, his body twisting, burning, imploding. Same cycle of life and death. Just... Over... And over... And over. But he never stopped. It wasn't in the cards for him. Not then, not now, not ever. Like his escape from the slavers... His fall to Al-Fawra... His fight for survival... His broken crawl to the cave... His acceptance of Sinbad's death, the goodbye of Huda... His begging, humiliation that defied anything he'd gone through... His burying hands, tucking away what he couldn't save... His journey outside Althawul... His hunt of the Qird... Malik could NOT stop. Not when he was this close. And then... finally... FINALLY, after what he could guess to be another ten or so years of attempts—his soul-crushingly monotonous routine had a new addition. "Attempt... something something something, twelve, whatever." Malik held the core to his chest, his hands trembling. He was astronomically beyond exhaustion—no, that wasn't even close. His mind felt like it had been ground down to the atoms themselves. Yet, somehow, some insane part of him kept going. Because determination? That wasn't enough. It was just a cute little thing that didn't mean squat when against this self-inflicted nightmare. To make it this far? It wasn't about willpower. No. This was something way more. It was about pure, unhinged insanity. The kind of madness that burned logic to ash and stomped all over reason Or at least whatever 'reason' had remained—which, at this point, wasn't much. Thankfully, though, Malik still had just enough scraps of brainpower left to notice this 'new addition.' It wasn't rocket science. It was stupidly simple. Only mechanically tough. He started pulling Aether in tiny, timed increments—ten milliseconds at first, then twelve after every fourth pull. And soon enough, the familiar whine began again, but this time... 'Whoa.' This time it was different. It wasn't as high-pitched, not as strained. The pressure built, but it didn't collapse like it always had. It stabilized. Permanently. The Aether flowed smoothly, filling his core. No resistance, no feedback. It was like he was finally in sync with it. Malik's eyes widened in disbelief. He could feel it—power surging through him, the heat of the Qird's very essence merging with his own. His body burned, but it wasn't painful. It was exhilarating. This... this was something else. "Holy..." His voice was trembling. "I did it." Finally, the core dissolved into his chest, its Aether settling within him like it belonged there all along. Malik's body shook—trembled from something new, something foreign. Not pain. Not exhaustion. For the first time in what felt like centuries, he was shaking from sheer, overwhelming relief. He slumped back against the cave wall, feeling a weight being lifted off his shoulders. After God knows how many deaths... "I actually did it." Of a time he spent struggling... "I really did." Of a time he spent grinding himself to dust... He had finally done it. Malik had succeeded. "Finally..." He let out a shaky breath, lifting his right arm. His fist clenched tight, golden flames bursting out like they had a mind of their own. Strength tore through him like a river breaking free. And then, he let it all out. Every ounce of rage, relief, frustration, and triumph he'd been bottling up. "I FUCKING DID IT!" The very earth beneath him began to shake. For just one brief, fleeting second, Malik let himself feel it. ...Victory. He let himself feel victory.

Chapter 49 Victory

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